the maternal female continues to defend and care for her young. The mother demonstrates exceptional maternal care as she communally feeds all the spiderlings and protects them from predators. Spiderlings remain on the same leaf with their mother for approximately 40 to 100 days. Spiderlings are unable to catch their own prey during this first period of their life and die in the absence of the mother. The mother wraps all prey that she catches in her silk and is never observed to consume the prey itself. This aggressive guarding behavior improves reproductive success because of the susceptibility of egg sacs to predation. If a maternal T. grallator dies or abandons her egg sac, the egg sac is captured by a predator in less than a week. When a maternal T. grallator guards and remains with her egg sac, there is a 57.2% hatching success rate. This signifies the advantage in egg sac guarding. Adoption Mothers take on foster egg sacs with acceptance. When spiderlings are transferred between broods, the new mothers ‘adopt’ these spiderlings into their family and care for them as if they were their own. Adoption of spiderlings may occur if the related mother has been lost. Losing one’s mother is generally a result of predation or old age. Spiderlings who lose their mother either leave their resident leaf by dropping down a silk thread or climbing down the stem or stalk of the plant. These spiderlings may attempt to survive on their own but often may migrate to other leaves and join another brood. Mothers are very receptive in adopting spiderlings, regardless of the color morph. In addition, the lack of competition within a brood contributes to the ease of acceptance of adopted spiderlings. Parent-offspring conflict Parent-offspring conflict may occur in the costs of mothers guarding their spiderlings. When a maternal female T. grallator has a second brood, she must remain with the first brood for a period of time after hatching because of the spiderlings' inability to feed themselves. Thus, the second brood may be compromised due to the need for parental investment by the first brood. Social behavior Adult females are usually sedentary and located on the underside of leaves while males are often more mobile as they may move about in the search of mates. Thus, due to male mobility, they often become more conspicuous to predators. Gravid females and females guarding egg